Employment among immigrant women and men in Denmark

The role of attitudes

Mette Deding og Vibeke Jakobsen

SFI 2008. 41 s.

Bogomtale fra forlaget.

We examine to what extent cultural factors contribute to explaining the employment gap between immigrants and Danes. We look at differences in attitudes defined by different indices and include these attitude indices in an estimation of the probability of employment. Attitudes are those towards working women, those towards distribution of housework, those towards the receipt of public transfers and religiousness. We find that immigrants have more traditional gender roles and are more religious than the Danes, while the Danes have a less judgemental attitude towards the receipt of public transfers than immigrants. The attitudes are more important women than men. Traditional attitudes towards gender roles have a negative influence on immigrants and Danish women’s probability of employment, while less judgemental attitudes towards the receipt of transfers have a negative influence on Danish women’s probability of employment. Religiousness does not seem to be important for the probability of employment.